The Feedback-Friendly Classroom

With a growth mindset, students inherently understand that they can achieve. Students with growth mindsets are appropriately challenged with their work to grow and learn because learning is going to happen. It is important that we don’t push students too far or too hard, as this will only promote a fixed mindset. If our feedback tells students that they just have not met the learning goals, and provides no hints for improvement, then students will believe that they cannot get better, that they cannot reach the success criteria and learning goals. Our feedback needs to appropriately acknowledge the learning that students have already demonstrated and provide explicit descriptive feedback for students to continue to improve. This is the only way to foster a growth mindset in students.